


Reopening Old Wounds

by archdemonblood



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood blood and more blood, F/M, Gen, I didn't take four years of German to NOT use it in fanfic wherever possible, inspired by c2e74 but it can take place whenever, tw for self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 20:30:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archdemonblood/pseuds/archdemonblood
Summary: The Mighty Nein are up against a powerful foe, and Caleb knows a way to give them an edge: an old trick Trent Ikithon taught him. (tw: flashbacks to Caleb's teenage years, abuse, torture mention, and self-harm.)





	Reopening Old Wounds

“Caduceus, may I have a word?”

They stood alone beneath the tree, beneath the dark vastness of the sky above. It was 2:53 in the afternoon, and Caleb Widogast had made a decision.

“Sure,” Caduceus said, coming out of his meditation and looking up. “Have as many as you want. Should I make tea?”

“No, it won’t take that long,” Caleb said, glancing at the trap door back into the house nervously. This was a _relatively_ private place, but any member of the group could come up at any moment if they wanted, and there was always a chance the Fjord would be able to hear everything if he had his window open and they spoke too loudly. It seemed foolish to make Caduceus go downstairs, though. That would make this whole thing seem much more serious than Caleb wanted it to be. “I was hoping to ask you for a favor.”

Caduceus said nothing. The serene expression on his face did not change. He sat, and he listened.

Caleb continued standing. “Will you… Will you save a spell for me? I do not know what you had planned for today, but I may come to you later with some… minor injuries, and I would appreciate it if you would heal them.”

“Of course,” Caduceus said. “You don’t even have to ask.”

“I just wanted to make sure you would be ready,” Caleb said. “Danke. It means a lot to me.” 

Caleb turned to leave.

“How are you planning to be injured?” 

There was no accusation in Caduceus’ voice. When Caleb turned around, Caduceus’ face and demeanor were calm. He didn’t even seem worried; just curious. 

“I…” Caleb said, feeling his mouth go dry despite Caduceus’ calmness. “I want to try something. Something that I think will help me—and the group, really, but especially me—grow stronger.” 

Caduceus’ big pink eyes blinked. “And this something is going to injure you?”

“Not badly,” Caleb assured him. “It’s something that I could survive without you; I’ll just be more comfortable with your aid.” 

“Alright.” Caduceus ran a hand through his hair, showing discomfort with the conversation for the first time. “But you don’t want to tell me what it is?”

“No, I would prefer not to say, just yet.”

Caduceus nodded. “What time were you, uh, thinking you were going to do this? So I’m ready.”

Caleb shrugged. “After dinner,” he said. Without thinking, he said, “7:00 or so.”

~*~

It was a cold spring morning, and the scare-cricks were dressed in warmer clothing than the students. At the Academy, they’d worn uniform robes with long, billowing sleeves that were always in the way. When Ikithon first brought them here to train as Vollstreckers, he gave them new versions of the uniform, with the sleeves completely removed. Wulf had grumbled about not being allowed to wear his own clothes, even so far away from the Academy, but Bren hadn’t minded; his clothes from home were nothing special, and he was proud to be marked as a student at the Academy. With the sleeves gone, there was little to dislike about the robes--at least until the weather turned cold.

Bren clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering, and Astrid rubbed her bare arms with her equally bare hands, hoping to warm them both with the friction. Only Wulf seemed unaffected, at least aside from the goosebumps on his arms.

Then there was Archmage Ikithon. He must have been uncomfortable too, because the material of his robes was thin, but he gave no sign of it. If there were goosebumps on his arms, they were hidden; _he_ was allowed the luxury of long sleeves. 

Bren doubted there were goosebumps. Archmage Ikithon was always in complete control of everything around him. That must have included his own body. With a stern look at Astrid, Ikithon reminded her that _she_ was always to be in control, too. Her arms fell to her sides.

Bren seemed to have passed inspection, this time, despite the tightness in his face. Though he felt a little like he’d cheated somehow, he was more relieved than guilty.

If they did this right the first time, they’d only be out here for a few minutes. That’s what Ikithon used to tell them, when he brought them out here on mornings like this and they asked if they could go back inside for their cloaks. They were younger then, and softer, and they’d needed to be coaxed and plied sometimes. Asking to go back inside _now_ would be met with nothing more than a slap in the face, and it went without saying that they would do it right the first time. 

They took their usual positions. Ikithon had marked the spots with paint when they’d first arrived here, but two heavy winters and two wet springs had washed away the lines. It didn’t matter. They all knew where to stand: directly across and roughly 20 yards away from their scare-cricks.

Technically, they didn’t have their own scare-cricks. If Bren wanted, tomorrow he could simply stand in front of Wulf’s scare-crick. Wulf might punch him, but Ikithon probably wouldn’t object. He hadn’t assigned them to scare-cricks, just as he hadn’t assigned them to desks in the classroom or to seats at the dinner table. But they’d been here long enough to fall into routines and feel ownership over the objects involved in those routines. Bren _liked_ his scare-crick, with its chipped nose and the scorch mark on the eye where Ikithon’s fire-immunity enchantment had started to wear down. Bren felt accomplished when he looked at it, and sometimes at night he pictured it in his mind and imagined the beautifully-cast attack spells he would cast on it when Ikithon next brought them out here. 

They all stood silently, with their arms at their sides. The wind howled past them, ruffling their clothes and messing up Astrid’s hair, but nothing else moved.

“Now,” Ikithon said.

Bren tossed a fireball so bright it blinded him, and so hot it singed the hair on his arms. When he opened his eyes, he saw the scare-crick devoured by flames; flames that continued to burn long after the entropic energy faded from around Astrid’s scare-crick, and even after the ice began to melt away from Wulf’s scarecrick; but Wulf wasn’t even looking at his scare-crick by that point; he and Astrid were both staring at Bren with wide eyes. 

Ikithon was smiling. He moved toward Bren briskly, and when he got there, he put a hand on Bren’s shoulder.

Bren beamed.

“See what you can accomplish,” Ikithon said to Astrid and Wulf, “when you focus, master yourself…” The hand that wasn’t on Bren’s shoulder grabbed his arm and stretched it out, palm up. The smile on Ikithon’s face broadened. “...and use every tool at your disposal.” He stroked Bren’s arm, and his fingers barely caught on the almost smooth places where flesh transitioned into crystals. 

Now that he’d mentioned it, and the heat from the fireball had faded, Bren could _feel_ the crystals, fizzing in his arms. It wasn’t painful; maybe a bit itchy, but that was a small price to pay for Ikithon’s approval. They seemed smaller than they should have, though. Ikithon had just replaced all of their crystals two months ago. The time before that, it was four months. The time before _that_, it had only been one month, but they’d only had one crystal each, then. When Ikithon first increased it to four crystals--two in each of their arms--he’d told them that it would increase the time between replacements. 

Trent let go of Bren’s wrist. He waved for Astrid and Wulf to head back inside, but he turned toward Bren and softly said, “You’ll need to see me later. 7:00, my office. Don’t be late.” 

“I won’t be.” 

For a second, Trent seemed to be taken aback by the boldness of one of his students actually defending himself. Then it passed, and he smiled slightly. “Of course. _You_ never are.”

~*~

“Do you think my son could live here?” Nott asked.

“Entschuldigung?” he said, looking up from his book. It was the first time she’d spoken in more than an hour, and it took a second for Caleb to process the words. 

“Bless you,” Nott said.

Caleb raised an eyebrow, challengingly, but with no real venom behind it. 

“I’ve just been thinking about my family,” she said. “Eventually, you know, once all of this is over, we’ll live together again... But I’m not sure if we’ll be welcome back in the Empire. We all seem to be welcome in the Dystany right now, but halflings in general aren’t. I mean, maybe we’d be allowed to live here, but would he, I don’t know, be bullied in school...?” 

“What about the Menagerie Coast?” Caleb asked. “They seem to be doing well enough there. You could save up some money to buy a house, get the shop running again..."

“I suppose,” Nott said. “It doesn’t really feel like home, though. Do you think Jessie will go back?” 

“Oh, I’m sure,” Caleb said. “She’ll want to be near her mother.” 

Nott nodded slowly. “Children should be with their mothers. I guess that’s what home really is.” 

“Yes.” Caleb nodded. “I think… if we play our cards right, your family will be able to live wherever you want, and you and Yezza can decide where that is when the time comes.” 

“What about you?” Nott asked. “Do you have any plans for where you’d like to... settle down, I guess?” 

Caleb opened his mouth, then paused. It was funny. He’d never actually _thought_ about it before, but now that he was thinking about it, he realized that he’d always just assumed-- 

“Hey, guys!” Beau said, swinging into the room on the doorframe. “Caduceus made dinner. Some kind of stir fry. It’s pretty good. Come get it while it’s hot.” 

Caleb marked his page and closed his book. Nott had finished the acid she was working on before she started speaking. Together, they stood, and followed Beau and the smell of spices into the dining room.

~*~

“Astrid... Zieg mir deine Arme, bitte.” He wasn’t sure how to ask her, so he just tapped her on the shoulder and said it, in plain Zimnian, there in the hallway outside of their bedrooms.

She turned around and blinked at him. He saw her mouth shape the first syllable of a question, even as she offered him her arm, but he stopped her and nodded toward his own open bedroom door. 

They had nice bedrooms, here in the country estate. The dormitories at the Academy had been nicer than Bren’s bedroom in Blumenthall; they’d had softer mattresses and warmer blankets and desks for the students to study at. Their bedrooms out here were even nicer. First of all, they didn’t have to share them. Ikithon had only brought the three of them out here, so they each had their own room, with their own large desk, full bookshelf (packed with tomes Ikithon expected them to read; Bren had finished them all within three months), wardrobe, and bed. The bed in Bren’s bedroom here was bigger than the one his parents slept on back home. 

They sat down on that large bed with the soft duvet that kept Bren warm on the coldest of nights, and now he looked at the arm Astrid was offering to him. 

He grabbed the back of her arm, almost like Ikithon had grabbed his own arm earlier, but gentler. When she didn’t pull away, he ran his other hand gently over her skin. When it came to a crystal, his fingers stopped in their tracks. Her crystals were still so large, and so protruded from her arm, that the only way to get past them was to lift his finger over them. Both times. 

She stared at him, confused by calm, silently trusting that there was a reason for what he was doing. 

Not wanting to make her wonder any longer, he took her hand in his and offered her his other arm. He moved his hand so that her middle and pointer fingers were free, and then he glided her hand over his own arm. They didn’t have to stop once. When her fingers ran over his crystals, they did so with only a small bump. There was no denying now that his crystals were considerably smaller than hers; smaller than they should have been, so soon. 

She stared down at his pale flesh and the faded green crystals embedded within. “Das ist... gut, ja? Du tun es richtig.” By the time she was finished speaking, she almost looked convinced. 

It wasn’t good, though. Sure, intellectually, it seemed like it _should_ be good--this was the desired result--but it felt all wrong. If there was any justice in the world, Bren wouldn’t be cut open later tonight for doing it _right_. 

She understood his lack of response for the response that it was. She took her eyes off his arm and moved them to his face, and she closed the distance between them until their foreheads were touching, and he could feel her breath on his lips when she whispered, “Keine Sorgen. Du bist stark. Und ich werde hier sein, als es fertig ist.” 

He smiled a little. He wasn’t feeling particularly strong, in that moment, but it was a comfort to know that she would be waiting for him here when he was done. “Danke,” he said, moving his head slightly so that their lips met. 

“Immer,” she said, breaking apart for just a moment to get the word out before she went back in for another kiss, this one deeper than the last. He felt her tongue probe--

“Do you realize how much trouble you’re about to be in?” Wulf said, leaning on Bren’s doorpost. 

Bren and Astrid pulled away from each other immediately. 

“If you’re late for your meeting, Archmage Ikithon will come looking for you,” Wulf explained. “And he’ll find you _like this_, and speaking Zimnian on top of it.” 

They weren’t supposed to speak Zimnian here. Ikithon had explained to them that Zimnian was a legal language in the Empire, and peasants were encouraged to take pride in speaking. They, however, were training to be officials, and the official language of the Empire was Common. Wulf occasionally joined them in speaking Zimnian in private, but at the moment, he was angry with them. He’d been angry with them ever since he’d found out about their relationship. Bren had thought he was starting to cool off, but apparently catching them making out had reset that progress. 

Still, Wulf hadn’t told Ikithon. That must have meant he wasn’t _too_ angry. 

“I’m not going to be late for the meeting,” Bren said. “I’ve still got seven minutes. It will only take three to walk there.” 

“It didn’t look like you were about to head over there.” 

“Well I was.” It came out sharper than Bren intended. He didn’t want to be defensive about his relationship with Astrid, but Wulf made it hard not to be, sometimes. 

They all stewed in uncomfortable silence for several seconds. 

“You just missed the crownsguard,” Wulf said, more casually. He also seemed to suddenly regret the turn the conversation had taken. “Five new traitors. We won’t be practicing outside for a little bit.” 

“Thank Malora,” Astrid said. 

“What do you think we’ll do with the spare?” Bren asked. 

Wulf smiled. “That’s what I was wondering.” 

“I’m sure Archmage Ikithon has plans,” Astrid said. “Speaking of which…” 

“I’m going,” Bren said, but he grabbed her hand as he stood, and held on to it for as long as he could while he walked away. 

Wulf stayed where he was as Bren left. He was going to talk all of this over with Astrid while Bren was meeting with Archmage Ikithon. They’d move into his room, or maybe hers, and they’d speculate about what they might end up doing with the fifth traitor, and when they ran out of theories about that, they’d discuss what they really wanted to discuss: Bren, and what he was doing with the crystals. It was never good to be shown up in front of Ikithon. They’d do whatever they needed to catch up, even if the reward for doing so was a knife to the arms. If they couldn’t figure it out for themselves, Astrid would ask Bren when he returned. 

In truth, though, he wasn’t quite sure how he was doing it. One day, Bren hadn’t been able to fully tap the power of the crystals, and the next, he had. Something had just clicked. Maybe it would click for Astrid and Wulf too, soon. He hoped so, for their sakes. 

He knocked on Archmage Ikithon’s door at 6:58, and was immediately given permission to enter. 

Ikithon had it all ready: the sanitized dagger and the crystals were laid out almost ritualistically on his desk. Bren hesitated for half a beat when he saw them, then walked over to the desk and began to sit down.

“You can stand for this,” Ikithon said. 

Before Bren’s butt had even touched the chair, he stood back up. He wondered if Ikithon had always planned to have him do this, or if he’d noticed the slight hesitation when Bren first entered, and was punishing him for it. 

“Stay standing through this whole process.” Ikithon held out his hand expectantly, and Bren placed the back of his wrist into it. 

“Why are you here?” Ikithon asked, sounding distracted. It was not a question that he imagined Bren could possibly get wrong; it was a routine they needed to go through. 

“I’ve burned through the crystals, sir,” Bren said. “I need new ones.”

“Indeed,” Ikithon said, picking up the dagger. “You’ve seen how they make you stronger.” 

With one swift movement, Ikithon sliced through the thin layer of skin that was keeping the top crystal in his left arm. Bren sucked in a mouthful of air, but stopped himself from crying out. He wasn’t even allowed to sit this time; he was certainly not allowed to cry out. Ikithon hadn’t even allowed them to scream the very first time he’d done this. 

It was easier to breathe through the second slash. He knew that it was coming. Though the white hot pain enveloped half his arm, he grinded his teeth together and stayed silent. 

He was not ready for the third slash, though he should have been. There were six crystals on the desk. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to that when he walked in? He actually let out a small whimper when the oxygen touched a fresh row of blood, and Ikithon looked at him with cold eyes and dug his thumbnail into the open wound until Bren got his shit together and quieted down. 

That was the easy part. 

The second part was to remove the two crystals that were currently in Bren’s arm. Ikithon took no care as he dipped his fingers into the first wound and parted Bren’s skin until he could get at the tiny husk that remained of the crystal. Once he could get his finger under part of it, he tipped it so that it was at an angle, with one half sticking out of Bren’s arm while the other half dug into new, agitated flesh. Bren’s arm shook, but he didn’t dare upset the archmage by pulling back, and it would have been useless anyway. Ikithon’s grip on his arm was ironclad, and fighting would only have resulted in further punishment, and more pain. 

The pain did not abate when Ikithon finally plucked out the crystal. Oxygen hit parts of the wound that had previously been sheltered, eliciting a fresh spurt of deep red blood against Bren’s pale skin, and a new wave of pain. 

By the time Ikithon had removed the second one, Bren’s legs were trembling as well as his arm, and all he could think about was the pain. Still, he stood, and he forced himself to hold as still he could, not pulling away or making a sound beyond what was absolutely involuntary. 

The third part was, of course, to put the new crystals in. To do that, Ikithon simply cleaned the blood from Bren’s arm with a wave of his hand, then grabbed a fresh crystal from the desk, laid it straight across one of the throbbing gashes in Bren’s flesh, and pushed down until about 75% of the crystal was embedded in Bren’s skin. As he did so, he further irritated an already throbbing wound, and more and more blood seeped up around it, like the water in a bathtub when you first climbed into it. 

He did that three times. 

Bren wasn’t afraid of blood. He saw a great deal of it, on a fairly regular basis. Trent often had the crownsguard from Rexxentrum bring them deserving traitors to practice. While magical torture and death was usually relatively clean (albeit less so for Bren than for Astrid and Wulf), there were of course various spells that _would_ cause the victims to bleed, and Ikithon occasionally made them practice with knives, to keep them well-rounded. 

Bren wasn’t even particularly squeamish about _his own_ blood, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch it fall onto Ikithon’s desk, one drop after another, until it was coming down so fast it was like some kind of demented rain. 

Only once all three crystals had been [re]placed was Bren allowed the sweet relief of a healing spell. Ikithon never healed them all the way, because it was important to allow the body to heal itself around the crystal, or so he told them. It made very little difference in the moment, because by that time, Bren’s entire arm had felt like it was on fire for so long that his brain had started to shut it out. It would fade, little by little, until it was nothing more than a dull throb that kept him awake all night. Ikithon would still expect perfection from him in the morning. 

The second arm was usually easier. By that point, everything was a blur and Bren no longer knew how long this had been going on or what his own name was. Existence was only pain, and all he could do was stand there and take it in silence, or--somehow--there’d be more pain. 

Bren nearly collapsed when Ikithon inserted the fifth new crystal. Bren’s legs were trembling harder than they had ever trembled before, and just when he knew with complete clarity that _he could not do this anymore_, it stopped. The pain subsided until it was merely blinding, rather than lethal, and somehow, Bren stayed on his feet, even as the sixth crystal was pushed in. 

Then there was the sweet, sweet relief of healing magic. 

“Sit,” Ikithon said, once he was finished. 

Bren was grateful. He didn’t think he’d have been able to stand any longer no matter what Ikithon said, but it was better to have permission. He hit the wooden chair so hard that it hurt his tailbone, but that didn’t matter in comparison to the agony in his arms. 

Ikithon returned to his own seat and began to record today’s developments with the crystals, ignoring Bren until the light came back on in Bren’s eyes. When he noticed that Bren’s eyes were focusing again, Ikithon met them. 

“Why did I make you stand?” he asked. There was an edge to his voice, this time, and an interest. _This_ was a question that he thought Bren might get wrong. 

“To teach me…” Thinking was difficult. As the haze lifted, the throbbing in Bren’s arms returned. Still, Bren knew that he could not answer this question incorrectly, or there would be more pain to come. He ran through a list of everything he knew about Vollstreckers and pain. 

“Endurance. I might be captured and tortured some day,” he said. “I’ll need to be able to endure worse pain than this, for the good of the Empire.” 

Ikithon considered this for a moment, then nodded. Bren got the sense that this wasn’t quite the answer he had been looking for, but it was close enough that he would accept it. Bren had avoided punishment, for now. 

“You must be willing to do whatever it takes,” Ikithon said. “For the good of the Empire. Next time, we’re going to work on that trembling.” 

Bren swallowed hard. “Yes, Archmage Ikithon. Thank you.” 

“You are dismissed.”

~*~

At 6:58, there was a knock on Caleb’s bedroom door. He almost didn’t open it, but not opening it would seem suspicious, and he didn’t want his friends to worry or think that there was anything wrong with him.

It was Caduceus. He stood there with a bowl full of some kind of liquid, with two several rags draped over it. “Have you done whatever it is you’re going to do, yet?” he asked. 

“No,” Caleb said. “Not yet. If you would come back in an hour or so--” 

“--Actually,” Caduceus said, “I was hoping to be here when you did it. Maybe I can help.” 

Caleb hesitated. “It is not something I want help with. Thank you, though.” 

Caduceus shook his head. “I don’t mean help you hurt yourself.” He nodded down at the bowl in his hands. “This is a mixture of a couple of different healing herbs. If you’re going to injure yourself, it might be good to wash the area with this first. It’ll numb you up a bit. Plus, I’d like to at least be there, in case anything goes wrong.” 

Caleb looked down the hallway, half expecting the rest of the group to be peaking out from the entrance to the training room, waiting to ambush Caleb if Caduceus failed. 

They were alone. 

“You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?” he checked.

“Could I talk you out of it?” Caduceus asked.

“No.” 

“Then there’d be little point in trying.” Caduceus was still calm. He didn’t seem disappointed, and Caleb was glad. The others were going to be disappointed: Nott and Jester, certainly, and possibly Beauregard. Fjord and Yasha might understand. But the disappointment of those first two women was going to be hard to bear, when it came. It didn’t need to be compounded with Caduceus’ disappointment. 

“Besides,” Caduceus added, “I think you know what you’re doing. You certainly know more about it than I do. So if you think it’s for the best, I have to trust that. Trust you.” 

Caleb stepped back. “Come in.” 

He had it all set up, just like Ikithon used to have it set up. Eight crystals and a dagger, all neatly laid out. He’d already taken off his coat, his scarves, and even his shirt, so that he stood over his tools bare-chested. 

The crystals had not been easy to come by, even with the Mighty Nein’s connections in the Dynasty. He’d needed Essek to take him all the way to White Stone, and he’d paid a high price for them there. It would be worth it, though, if they gave Caleb the power to face what was coming. 

Caduceus looked at them. “You’re putting them back in?” he asked. 

“I have to,” Caleb said. “With everything that is going on... I cannot refuse anything that would give us an edge.” 

“It’s not an edge if we lose you to it,” Caduceus said. 

Caleb looked at him, but before Caleb could speak, Caduceus continued: 

“I said I wouldn’t try to talk you out of it, and I won’t. But I need to ask you, just once: Are you sure you can handle this?” 

“_Yes_,” Caleb said, though his throat was suddenly dry. He _could_ handle this. And he _would_. He would do whatever it takes.

Caleb. A different name, for a man who was, in many ways, a very different person than Bren. Caleb looked like Bren and spoke like Bren, but he did not think or fight or love like Bren did. Caleb was the sort of man that Bren would gladly have tortured to see a flicker of approval in Trent Ikithon’s eyes. Bren was the sort of boy that Caleb would--with some hesitation, and only if he had to--strike down for the chance to turn Trent Ikithon to ash. 

They were very different people, and yet they were one. It was like if one shattered a mug, picked up the pieces, and glued it back together in the shape of a plate. Was it still the same dish? Bren’s memories were Caleb’s memories. Parts of Caleb were still recognizable as pieces of Bren, if he turned them the right way in the light. 

“As long as you’re sure,” Caduceus said. “And as long as you know that no one expects this of you.” He set the herbal mixture down beside the crystals, and submerged one of the rags into it. “May I wash your arms?” he asked. 

“You said that that mixture would numb the pain?” Caleb asked.

“Some of it, yeah. It doesn’t work miracles. It’ll also stop it from getting infected and reduce swelling, if that’s going to be an issue.” 

“Then I would like that very much.” 

Caleb held his arms out, scars up, while Caduceus pulled the soaked rag out of the bowl and rung it out slightly. Then, very gently, Caduceus ran the cloth over Caleb’s arms. The herbal mixture was cool on Caleb’s skin, and just a little bit sticky, but it was worth it if it did half of what Caduceus claimed it would. 

He did not back away when he was finished. He stood there as Caleb picked up the dagger and cut into his own flesh, right along the oldest of his scars. 

It hurt, but not as badly as it should have. The mixture had done something, at least. 

Caleb moved to slice a lower scar, but Caduceus stopped him. 

“Why don’t you do it one at a time?” Caduceus asked. “I can heal you as you go.” 

Caleb paused. “Are you sure? You will burn through more spells that way.” 

Caduceus nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. You’ll be in less pain this way, and I haven’t done much magic today. It’s all good.” 

Caleb shrugged. “If you’re sure.” 

There were no crystals to remove, this time. Ikithon had pulled all of them out before he sent Bren to the asylum. As brutal as that had been, Caleb was grateful now. It meant there was an entire step to this process that he could skip right over. 

He picked up the first crystal, and as he did so, Caduceus put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb took a deep breath, and as he shoved the crystal into his skin, he focused on the warmth of that hand. Caduceus was only one of a group that Caleb had come to love like a second family, and there was nothing he would not do to protect them. 

Still, he groaned as he shoved it down. When he did, Caduceus’ hand moved in a small, comforting circle on his back, and he didn’t stop until the crystal was in place. 

Caduceus healed the wound immediately, and he healed it completely. Caleb almost objected, but the crystal looked fine, and he couldn’t actually think of any reason why it shouldn’t be healed completely. The only source he had on that was Trent Ikithon, and that was not a reliable source. 

So he let Caduceus heal it, glad to know that he would be able to sleep tonight, and that the others would be _a bit_ less horrified when they saw it in the morning. 

He looked at Caduceus in silent gratitude, unable to find the words in Common for what he wanted to say. 

Caduceus seemed to understand anyway. “Do you want to keep going?” he asked. 

Caleb nodded. “Yes.” 

And he _could_ keep going. The idea was unpleasant, but not terrifying. Not with Caduceus here and the rest of the group in the house.


End file.
